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@Draconian . I guess this thread will take place in lots of locations [and obviously here it starts in Ketra!] but since it should end up here, I decided to put it here. :D
P.S. Good luck getting Foreigner out of your head now!
Ashra Blackspire hated being in Ketra. Ashra Blackspire hated being surrounded by all the people. Ashra Blackspire hated being called into the (stuffy) Hall of Dragon Riders. But as much as he might hate all of these things, Ashra Blackspire also hated people who thought they were too special to not fulfill their duties. Insufferable bastards. So here he was, standing in the Hall, deep within Ketra, following his summons.
The Hall of Dragon Riders was a great, cavernous space: large enough not only for the dragon
riders, but their dragons. In fact, it was a cavern, long ago adapted into this ceremonial hall. When the Adelan King first established the Dragon Riders, the giant hall was adapted for those few elite inductees. (Ashra hated 'the elite.') Due to its nature, the Hall was dim and flickered with the golden light of a long line of bronze torches, each shaped like a dragon's head. The ceiling of the Hall, naturally vaulted, was adorned with a great fresco of a dragon, jewels set into its countenance. In all this opulence, Ashra waited. Beside him was his dragon, Lyra. She was smaller than most, the core of her body not much larger than a draft horse (or as Ashra liked to say, 'a cow'), with long graceful tail and neck, spiral horns, and large, folded wings. Bronze-scaled and eyed, she was a beautiful and powerful creature.
Ashra and Lyra had some idea of why they had been summoned here. Rumors had been muttered amongst the Dragon Riders about the dwindling numbers of dragons available or willing to join ranks with Riders. The line of dragons brought back by King Akkiel were producing less and less offspring. Less eggs were laid, fewer of those hatched. Of course, not all Riders were paired with dragons of the line of King Akkiel. Lyra herself was born a wild dragon in the Thunderblacks. The smallest, gentlest, and fiercest of her clutch, Lyra had chosen Ashra. It hadn't been his Meeting, but he had been the one to walk away chosen by a dragon. The one to walk away alive. Lyra's clutchmate hadn't been the only wild dragon to refuse a rider, though; more and more were. Of course, dragons already paired with Riders
could breed, and their offspring were more likely to accept a rider, but with their active military duties, fewer did than wild dragons.
But in the last few days, amongst all of this, new rumors began to spread amongst Riders. A Seer had seen something in her dream. A distant land, mountainous and snow-covered like the heights of the Thunderblacks, but colder and a with a thicker blanket of snow and ice. There she had seen a great white dragoness, large and powerful, wise and sentient. With a clutch of ice-blue eggs, hidden deep within a glacial cave. But in the Seer's vision, the great white mother dragon had been felled by warlike, white-skinned people who had invaded the northern mountains with smoke and gunpowder and cannons. A wicked people who had feared the dragon, and so slayed her. But the eggs, the Seer said, remained undiscovered. And motherless.
Who, the Seer had implored, would go to them?
Now Ashra waited. But the answer, it seemed, would come soon. The sound of approaching footsteps echoed in the Hall of Dragon Riders.
